Health & Wellness : News brief

Boats powered by alternative fuels is nothing new…human-powered (duh), wind (double duh), electricity, steam, biodiesel, solar…all fairly old hat with improvements occurring daily. But this one takes the cake.

 

Crushed by debts most Westerners would deem inconsequential, farmers like Surpam killed themselves at a rate of 48 a day between 2002 and 2006 — more than 17,500 a year, according to experts who have analyzed government statistics. At least 160,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1997, said K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies.

Though still on the south side of 30, Wieder (a pseudonym) is founder and CEO of a successful East Coast green-manufacturing company. Founded in 2001, Wieder's company converts waste materials into hip, desirable, ecologically sound products

Store brand milk in the United States will now come exclusively from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones

A vast array of pharmaceuticals have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.

A New York-area nonprofit is using Facebook to better coordinate where and when people donate blood.

The cement plant will be the first in the U.S. with a specific deal to cut emissions of mercury.

Wal-Mart and Toys 'R' Us have announced a new series of safety checks to be applied to imported toys, following the series of damaging recalls that dented confidence in the industry.

A Chinese factory that supplies much of the active ingredient for a brand of a blood thinner that has been linked to four deaths in the U.S. is not certified by China’s drug regulators to make pharmaceutical products, according to records and interviews.

The UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has launched a new campaign calling on retailers to stop selling cheap meat from chickens raised in poor conditions with full page ads in four national newspapers.